What's in a number?

In the world of installable software, such as ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Pro, an important marker of a new release is the version number going up. Sometimes it’s a small increase from 10.2 to 10.2.1, other times it’s a major jump from 10.9.1 to 11.0.

With the recent release of ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0, we’ve gotten a lot of questions about the ArcGIS Enterprise version numbering scheme and what to expect going forward. Let’s address those questions!

What will be the version number of the next release of ArcGIS Enterprise?
ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0, which was released in July 2022, will be followed by ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 which is currently planned for release in Q1 2023. After that will follow an 11.2 release, and so on.

That’s a departure from the version numbering scheme used throughout the long-running 10.x series of ArcGIS Enterprise where we used “dot dot” version numbers like 10.9.1. In other words, we do not plan to release anything designated as 11.0.1 or similar.

What will be the next long-term support release?
The concept of short-term support and long-term support releases was introduced a few years ago as an evolution of the ArcGIS Enterprise product lifecycle on Windows and Linux. The pattern since then has been that each new minor version – such as 10.9 – was a short-term support release and the subsequent release – like 10.9.1 – was a long-term support release. (It’s worth noting that ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes has a different product lifecycle that does not have the concept of a long-term support release.)

Since we are moving away from that style of numbering, an obvious question is how short-term and long-term support releases will work in the future. Thankfully, it’s pretty simple:

• Even numbered minor versions (11.0, 11.2, 11.4, etc.) will be short-term support releases.
• Odd numbered minor versions (11.1, 11.3, 11.5, etc.) will be long-term support releases.

A specific example being ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0 which was a short-term support release, and ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 which will be a long-term support release.

Why did we go from 10.x version to 11.x?
You might be asking, why are we changing to the 11.x version numbers and a new numbering system anyway? The ArcGIS Enterprise 11.0 release included significant changes in technology that mark a new generation of ArcGIS Enterprise. We wanted to demonstrate the importance of this new generation with the new 11.x version numbers. The new major.minor versioning scheme being introduced with the 11.x generation is intended to make our version numbering simpler.

When will ArcGIS Enterprise 12.0 be released?
We have no concrete plans for a 12.0 at this time. As with any major version number update, there will be a significant driver to mark a new generation of ArcGIS Enterprise. A 12.0 release will come eventually, but we don’t know what that major driver to increase the major version number is yet. We’ll know it when we see it!